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The High-Performance Compute Modernization Program and the Defense Innovation Unit announce the successful expansion of the DoD’s computing power and flexibility.
Mountain View, CA (June 27, 2024) — The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) currently relies on a variety of on-premise computers to run compute-intensive workloads, such as deep neural networks, physics models, and engineering simulations. Although this approach has been effective so far, reliance on physical computers demands substantial investment in sourcing, purchasing, installing, and maintaining new hardware.
In early 2022, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) partnered with the High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP), which manages DoD’s supercomputing assets, to both proactively identify potential commercial solutions to scale resources as demand changes and provide access to the latest computing advances. Using DIU’s Commercial Solutions Opening process, the team identified vendors that could link the HPCMP’s on-premise computers with cloud-based HPC resources to both serve as surge capacity and to provide access to cutting-edge resources htmlFor specialized workloads.
The same year, DIU awarded two prototype agreements to Rescale and Parallel Works under HPCMP. Both vendors have been successful putting supercomputing in the cloud and aim to expand the scale and range of HPC resources available within the DoD by integrating cloud-based HPC assets into the HPCMP’s existing Supercomputing Resource Centers.
After an 18-month prototyping period, both Rescale and Parallel Works demonstrated that their solutions successfully increase the computing power of the HPCMP’s Supercomputing Resource Centers without significantly increasing hardware costs or requirements. The solutions work together to integrate the Centers, as well as multiple cloud service providers, into a robust network offering a wide range of HPC capabilities to the DoD in a single coherent ecosystem.
“This capability allows the HPCMP to securely combine the capacity and capability of DoD HPCMP Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers (DSRCs), with the flexibility and diverse hardware associated with commercial cloud providers in order to create a seamless ecosystem htmlFor DoD researchers,” said Dr. Benjamin Parsons, HPCMP Chief Technology Officer. “Researchers are [now] able to access cloud resources when appropriate to augment their work at on-premises centers. This has given them access to a wider variety of hardware, and the ability to scale resources beyond what is currently possible, all within one secure, easy to use, environment.”
Both vendors will be transitioning to production contracts with the HPCMP later this year. DIU Program Manager and Navy Lieutenant Commander, Al Williams noted that, “The ability to combine the DoD’s high-performance compute and share loads with cloud-based high-performance compute is something that only the commercial sector can provide today.
We’re delighted that DIU was able to help HPCMP add two new-to-DoD vendors with this capability.”
“The HPCMP is looking forward to providing this capability to our DoD partners to further enhance our HPC compute and data analytics capabilities. These capabilities are essential to meeting the needs of the DoD scientific and technology, test and evaluation, and acquisition communities who are key to supporting the warfighters across the globe,” said Dr. Parsons.